Part 11:

Three Groups

6 hours, 37 minutes

The groups they were in were settled. Robert, Jax, and Ned were grouped together. Frisco, Mac, and Luke were together, as were Sean, Lucky, and Robin. Danielle was left to be the messenger, floating about. Ned and Jax had both insisted on being the ones to look for Alexis directly, and Robert had agreed to go with them, as they had decided one agent should be placed in each group. Frisco, Mac, and Luke, were planning to try to find Faison directly. Sean, Robin, and Lucky were planning to scope the island and find the best way off of it.

6 hours,32 minutes.

Surrounding

Forest

"Alexis told me about the tunnels -- all Cassadine houses have them. I know where to enter them, and something about the exits." Jax offered. "They might be our best bet for getting in the house, but..." He paused. "She also said they were often flooded here because the ocean crashed into them during high tide."

"Anyone been to the beach lately?" Robert asked, lightly. Then, seriously, turning to Jax: "Do they flood all the way through?"

"She didn't say."

"If we walk right in, even through a back door, we're spotted, very likely caught, or shot. If we use the tunnels, we may catch them by surprise." He paused. "Or we might drown."

"It sounds like the tunnels are our best chance. We have to find Alexis," Ned interjected firmly.

"She didn't say how bad the flooding was," Jax said simply. "We have to at least try it."

"Okay," Robert concluded with a nod. "We're agreed then." He turned to Jax. "Think you can find the entrance?"

Jax nodded.

"Then lead the way."


6 hours, 19 minutes

The Woods,

Not Far From Cave

"You can't just walk into the main house," Danielle told Frisco, Mac, and Luke as she crossed them, walking to meet her father. "I hope you guys actually have a plan."

"I have the feeling you have a suggestion," Frisco said.

"Back. South orchard. There's a staircase that leads to the second floor. Only guarded by two men on the outside. A lot more on the inside, but let me take care of them. Climb up, then wait there. You should be able to hide. There's a garden up there, trees, plants. Easy to get lost in the shadows. I'll get you in. Give me thirty minutes."

"How?" Luke asked, not sure of her.

"Just trust me." Her eyes flashed. Her speech was economic and determined. It wasn't a suggestion.

"You guys go on ahead," Frisco said, nodding at Mac and Luke. "I'll catch up."

They looked at him strangely, but finally agreed, silently, nodding before they started moving.

"You're sure you can do it, Danny?" Frisco said softly, with more familiarity than he had shown before. Their eyes met.

"You know me," she said softly, smiling, more playful than we had seen her. But she was still serious, too. "Anything I set my mind to."

"Yeah," he said quietly, smiling. "Thirty minutes then. I'll make sure they're on board."

Mac stopped Luke, silently, with a wave of his hand, and they stood, listening to Frisco and Danielle from not three feet away, just behind trees.

"I'll make sure they're on board."

"Good," Danielle said. "Then, if we're lucky, maybe everyone on our side will still be alive at the end of the night."

Her voice was serious then. She wasn't as reckless as Sean and Robert thought, and Frisco knew it. That was all an act.

FLASHBACK: ALEXANDRIA, THREE YEARS AGO

Frisco and Danielle are stuck together in a storage closet, not much space between them, both tied up, but she is working on her hands with a bobby pin.

"You really think a bobby pin is going to do it?" Frisco asks her.

"You got a better idea?" She asked. "Besides, they only used rope. Which was stupid. You find one weak point in the rope, and anything can pierce it. You just need to find the soft spot. Like shucking an oyster."

"Good luck with that."

Danielle looked at him. He looked afraid, a bit, but resigned. "We'll go home, Jones. Don't go off in your head watching montages of This Is Your Life just yet. I don't have time to sit through that long an episode, old man."

He almost smiled, but couldn't. "I've got two little girls," he told her softly. "Not that they'll really know I'm gone. I don't see them often enough. I've been trying to promise to myself that if we do get out, I'll see them more, but that's a lie. Old agents don't change. But maybe," he took a long breath, "I'll call more. Send better presents."

Danielle's face softened, and she nodded. "I've gotten out of tougher scrapes than this with less than a bobby pin," she offered. "If it makes you feel any better."

"No, you haven't."

"No, I haven't," she agreed. "But it sounded good. And you know, always keep your hands up." She said, as she brought her hands around, now free of the rope, and held them in front of her face like boxing gloves. She smiled a wide, triumphant smile.

He started laughing. "Well, I'll be damned."

END OF FLASHBACK.

"You think we need luck, Danny?" It was a real question. His voice sounded heavy. Frisco was no fool either; he just didn't know the interior on this one.

"Yeah," Danielle said. "Well, I think you could use some luck at least."

"Me?"

"All three of you," she said. "You're not in your prime anymore – from the looks of it, not one of you is, and you'd all be better off remembering it, that's all I'm saying." But she was at least half-teasing/

"That sounds like a challenge," he said, taking a step towards her.

"Maybe," Danielle said, moving closer to Frisco and looking up at him. She was short, tiny, not quite five-foot-three, and she looked small next to him. They were within arms length, though not touching. "But not the kind you think. I'm serious about being careful. I don't want to have to come in there and save your ass again, Jones." Her eyes turned serious. "I got shot the last time I had to do that, remember?"

He laughed. "Oh, it only grazed your thigh. Don't be dramatic," he said, teasing. "I'm the one that was in the hospital."

"I remember." Her voice was quieter, less playful.

"You're just never gonna let me live that down, are you?" He was speaking lower, more intimately, moving just slightly closer.

She smiled, light again, as if turning a switch. "Not as long as we're both breathing," she said softly, closer to his ear. She kissed him on the cheek lightly before walking away again, starting into the forest again.

"No need to worry about that tonight," he said, and Danielle spun back around.

"Isn't she a little young for you, man?" Mac said, coming out of the trees and watching Danielle leave. "She looks barely legal."

Frisco looked up. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm pretty sure Scorpio's talking about your girlfriend there," Luke put in, not thrown by Frisco's act. "Little Miss 'Past Your Prime,'" he said, clearly bitter.

"Not that I think you're impartial, but is she really as good as she thinks – " Mac started, then stops at Luke's laughter. "As good an agent as she thinks," he corrects pointedly, looking at Luke, who throws his hands up, innocently, "or is she going to get us killed?"

"She's good," Frisco said. "She did save my ass. More than once."

"Then, let's listen to her," Mac said. He looked at Luke, who sighed.

"It can't hurt to go up the South stairs, I guess," he said. "If she knows how to get us to the bastard, then we'll let her."

6 hours, 10 minutes

Further Into the Woods,

Melpomene

"I'll report back again in another half hour, hour max," Danielle promised Sean. They seemed to have come into truce mode, after their earlier argument. "Where do you want to meet next time?"

"Here. If here is, for some reason, unsecured, the North peach orchard." Sean answered simply, looking at his daughter for a long moment. "And Danny?" He added softly. "I really mean it when I say be careful. It's all going to come down around us, one way or another."

"I understand that," Danielle said, more quietly now. It's what she had been trying to tell Frisco earlier, in her own way. "No one said Faison wasn't going to put up a hell of a fight. But I can fight, too."

She looked at him firmly, as if willing him to believe her. He never had. He'd always undermined her position with the WSB. Her career had been better off before anyone knew she was related to Donnelly. It wasn't completely public yet, but some of the higher-ups knew, and it had stalled her. He had a lot less faith in her than everyone else.

"I know you can," Sean said, sighing, understanding some of it.. "But I'm telling you now, if you're in a no-win situation and all you can do it get out, then abort. Get off the island somehow." Her eyes started to flare, but he held up a hand. "I'm serious, Danny, and this isn't special treatment. I told the others the same thing. The more of us that survive, the better the chance of catching up to him somewhere else."

Danielle just nodded at him before slipping away into the darkness, heading towards the house, lit like a beacon in the distance.

6 hours, 0 minutes

Secret Tunnels

Just Near Entrance

"Yeah, they definitely flood," Jax said in a strained voice, creeping along the flooring of the damp, cave-like room. There was water in the room and rising, but not dangerously high or fast -- as long as they didn't get lost.

"Looks like it," Robert commented wryly. "Getting lost in here could be deadly. Let's stick close together." He advised. "Tell me about her, Alexis, I mean," he asked lightly, trying to get his mind off of the filth, dreariness, and tediousness that surrounded them in their slow journey.

"What about her?" Ned asked, crouching with them, crawling essentially, as it was a low part of the room. There was only about two and a quarter feet of space, not nearly enough to stand up in. The water was only a few inches high, but rising.

"She must be something. You two both seem awfully attached to her." Robert commented. He was still good at reading people. "Have we stumbled upon a love triangle?" He didn't care so much, but he wanted something to pass the time, to keep his mind busy. The years of captivity had done something to his mind he was still trying not to understand – trivialities became more important to him, when he couldn't deal with anything vital. Stories. That's why he'd loved the newspapers so much when Jacques had brought them.

Jax chuckled as he crawled through the mud. "In a way, but not the way you'd ever imagine."

"How's that?"

"Jax is married to her," Ned said simply, sliding along through the filthy water, sticking close to the cold, dark wall. "But in name only. We kind of swapped couples, to save a friend's company. It's a long story."

"Swapped couples? So you're the one with Alexis?" Robert asked, raising an eyebrow. "And he's married to her, and you're married to some other woman."

"We just filed for divorce. Two divorces."

"Port Charles always held some strange people," Robert commented, chuckling to himself. "Why'd you have to marry different people to save a company, anyway?"

"Well," Jax started, into the rhythm of telling the story now. "Chloe's company was founded with her Uncle's money, and he wrote in his will that in order to keep the inheritance, she had to be married within five years. Well, she didn't want to loose her company, and I was going to propose, but Ned here, who is actually like her third cousin or something," Jax added pointedly, looking at Ned, who rolled his eyes.

"Distant cousins," he insisted to Robert, "and I didn't – we didn't actually date, or anything."

"Right. You just got married," Robert said, a little teasing, getting back some of his social skills, people skills. Talking like this again felt strange, but nice.

Jax smiled. "Anyway, he beat me to the proposal. Seemed damn foolish at the time and, in hindsight, it doesn't seem any smarter."

"It worked, didn't it?" Ned said pointedly. "And I didn't just come out and propose. I talked it over with Alexis first, to make sure she was okay with it."

Robert raised an eyebrow, wondering why Ned hadn't thought, perhaps, there was some issue with his girl not minding when he married someone else, even for show. But instead of asking that, he turned to Jax. "How did you wind up married to Alexis?"

"Well, we were headed to Vegas, to get Chloe and Ned , married," Jax commented. "And we got to this really tacky place called the Chapel of Bells," Jax said, but with a fondness that Ned couldn't help but note with uneasiness. "Anyway this hag of a woman – Gertrude, the woman after Chloe's company, her Uncle's widow, -- bursts in, and says no "farce" of a wedding like that, in Vegas, would satisfy the will. Then I, being resourceful and ingenious," Jax said, a note of teasing in his voice.

Ned rolls his eyes and shakes his head, a movement scarcely seen in the darkness.

"He steps up and says that it's Alexis and him who are getting married." Ned finished, cutting to the quick. "Reverend Love, our host in this debacle, says the quickest wedding speech that I've ever heard, and --"

"He's an expert on weddings." Jax pipes in. "Chloe was his...what, sixth bride?"

"Fifth," Ned corrects crossly. "Besides that, my first marriage was annulled, and Chloe certainly shouldn't count, nor should Katherine, technically."

"Oh, yes, Ashton here is a bigamist, formerly," Jax told Robert, picking up the story again. "Anyway, a long story short, Gertrude took a tumble down the stairs, died, and we're all back to normal."

Robert shook his head in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me." He said dryly, but he could tell they weren't. "That sounds insane."

"It was, believe me," Ned commented, sighing.

"I told you, from the beginning, it was a bad idea." Jax pointed out.

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Only because Gertrude lost her footing. Otherwise, we would have never made it. I'm sure of it," Jax said firmly.

"Well, you certainly weren't terribly reluctant to jump into your own, unnecessary fake marriage, Ned commented, pointedly.

"Wait," Robert interrupted. "Listen. You hear that?"

They did, and their hearts pounded nervously in their chests at what they heard -- the ocean. And it didn't sound like it was trickling in.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"I hope not."

The sliding wall of water hit them soon after, sending them flying, struggling up and to the side, anywhere, for breath. Struggling to get a grip on a wall to hold their heads firmly above water, getting thrown in all directions, down tunnels and slamming them against walls.

6 hours, 25 minutes

Melpomene:

Faison's Study

"Your possessions are already in transit, sir. And most of the servants left on the same boat. You can meet them at Terpsichore in a few hours. When will you want to be leaving?" A guard asked Faison.

"About ninety minutes. Has Mr. Cassadine worked out his plans for his sister?"

"Yes. They're transporting her in half an hour."

"Delay it. I have my own ideas for Stefan Cassadine's sister. Don't get too many guards involved, though, Marco. I don't know their loyalties."

"Yes, sir."

Plane,

Near Greece

The plane began its descent and Nikolas looked out the window, surprised. They were dropping as if landing, maybe a little steeper, and still miles away from Melpomene.

"What the – ?"

"We're running out of fuel, Mr. Cassadine," the pilot's voice came through. "We're going to have to land on another island if you don't want to crash into the Aegean. We're going to be pushing it as it is."

"Fasten your seatbelt," Nikolas commanded to Elizabeth, who complied quickly. "Okay, let's land." He turned to Elizabeth. "We can make the rest of the way by boat."

Docks,

Melpomene

Stefan Cassadine was about to board the large boat when Jacques, the servant who'd waited on Robert, ran after him. "Mr. Cassadine, sir, wait," he called. He was an old man, and he'd been running. He was barely breathing.

Stefan stopped. "Yes?"

"Sir, Faison is changing plans… for the woman… you are not to know, but… I overheard."

The man was on the verge of collapse. Stefan walked towards him and called his guards. "Get him on board the ship. We're not leaving yet. I have to see to my sister first," he told one of them.

South Docks,

Melpomene

"We can use this boat," Sean said, finally finding something with a motor. "But we need to hide it near the bluff over there."

"You sure it's big enough?" Lucky asked.

"It should fit all of us, and we only need to get to Terpsichore," Sean answered. "Robin, get in, so you can move the motor to steer if we have to."

"Okay."

"Lucky, can you help me push it?" Sean asked the young boy, as he started to get into the water himself. "It's awful quiet, and the motor might be heard."

"Sure." Lucky answered.

South Entrance,

Outside

"How long is it going to be?" Mac asked, wishing he had a watch.

"Can't be much longer," Frisco said.

They'd already dealt with the two guards at the back. Both had taken falls of the balcony.

"I'm sick of crouching behind this tree," Luke muttered. "Your girl sure is taking her time, Jones."

As if on cue, the door opened. "Rest assured, Mr. Spencer, I'm nobody's girl but my own," Danielle replied, "And I'm three minutes early. Get inside. Faison's on the move, making plans."

They did get inside, noting that she had, in fact, taken care of four interior guards. She'd dragged the four of them into a pile.

"Dead?" Mac asked. He couldn't tell if they were still breathing, but it seemed almost as though they were, slightly.

"Probably will be soon. Right now, heavily drugged," Danielle said, shrugging. "Don't have a silencer; it'd be too flashy. Besides, I felt no need to waste the bullets. And Faison likes to leave his pharmaceuticals just lying around." She showed them four vials she'd found. "I've got more if we need it, but a lot of the guards are already starting to clear out." She paused. "Now, are you all armed?"

"I am," Frisco said.

The other two men shook their heads.

"What is Sean sending in – kids with paper clips," Danielle sighed. She crouched down beside the crumpled guards and picked up their weapons. She expertly pulled the clips out of two of them and handed each of the men one gun and one extra clip. "I'm assuming you at least know how to shoot one of these, right?"

"Since before you were born, darlin," Luke answered.

Mac just nodded confidently.

"We going to leave them here?" Mac asked, gesturing towards the guards.

"We shouldn't waste the time hiding them," Frisco said. "Faison will know we're here soon enough."

"Why's it so quiet?" Luke asked. "Why are the guards leaving already, without Faison."

"Well, I'm guessing on account of the fifty or so bombs set to explode and decimate the island," Danielle answered. "That'd scare me into being a quick packer, too. And Cassadine is leaving the island soon."

"Helena is here?" Luke asked. "On the island? We need to catch up with her."

"Not Helena," Danielle answered, surprised they didn't know who Faison's partner was. "A man named Stefan. His boat leaves in ten minutes."

"Stefan is Faison's Cassadine partner. We've got to get him, too," Luke said, his eyes flashing at the name of the man.

"The docks are too far away. As far as we're concerned, he's already gone," Danielle said, steely-eyed. "We'll catch up with him later. He thinks he's still unnamed. He won't go into hiding."

"I'm not a patient man." Luke said. "Where are the docks?"

"There are eighteen docks on the island, Mr. Spencer. And you'll never make it. Worst of all, he could see you, and then he would go into hiding."

"Don't forget I've been shooting since before you were born, darlin," Luke said, training his gun on her and closing in. "You reach, and you'll never make it." He looked at his companions. "Either of you reach, she won't either. Now, tell me where Cassadine is."